If Trust Is So Important, Why Aren't We Measuring It?

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WAYNE RIVERS: Hi, everyone. This is Wayne Rivers at Performance Construction Advisors, where We Build Better Contractors.

This week I want to talk about trust again. And if trust is so important, why don't we measure it?

So we did a vlog just a few weeks ago and it was about authentic trust. And one of the keys in doing vlogs or public speaking or whatever is to know your audience. Well, I think I know my audience pretty well. What I don't know is which vlogs you are going to really like and which ones not so much. So when we're recording these vlogs, when I do a really good one, Neha says, "Oh, good one." Most of the time she goes, "Okay." And so we're not good judges. I mean, the ones that we think are going to be great and just knock you over are not always the best ones.

So the one about authentic trust really got some of our members. I got more emails on this one than anything in recent memory, that's for sure. So let me give you the benefit of our members' thinking on a couple of them. First, from Jim Young at Keiter Construction. "I really appreciate weekly messages. You do a wonderful job day to day." Okay. "I admire that you're able to bring deeper emotional concepts into these conversations. As a guy who wrote a book about intimacy for men, it's great to hear another guy with a platform like yours talking about things like intimate trust. Thank you." That's very nice, Jim. I appreciate that.

And then another from Bill Cantrell at Hilbers in California. He wrote an article, Being a Relatable Leader. And this is really good, too. Listen to this. "Throughout my career, I've worked under many different leadership styles. And the ones who've made the greatest impact weren't the ones pretending to be bulletproof. They were the ones who led with humility and humanity. The ones who didn't hide their scars, but used them to connect. The ones who weren't afraid to say, "I've been here." That's where trust is built because people don't trust perfection. People trust what they can relate to. They trust experience. They trust being real. Lead with humanity, lead with humility, lead in a way that builds trust. That's what people remember." Really, really well said.

So after this article, after this avalanche of emails, I saw an article from the Harvard Business Review dated November 4th this year, and it's from John Blakey, the author. And what about this is important to you. I mean, trust. I can't think of any industry where trust is more important than construction. You've got... Every project perhaps, you've got a different owner, you've got a different geography maybe. You've got different trade partners up and down the chain. Everything about each construction project potentially is new and unique. And so building trust quickly among teams is so important. I can't imagine any industry, as I say, that requires more trust.

If trust is so important, why don't we measure it? It's a great concept to think about. So Blakey writes that trust is foundational and it is measurable. In his article, he gives three specific tools, commercially available tools that are used for measuring trust. I didn't know. I didn't know they were out there either. I won't mention them, but you can read the article and you can dig them out and research them on the web.

He said the great thing about these tools is it allows you to turn trust into actionable insights; the measurement of trust into actionable, executive insights. And he says further, if you can measure trust, then you can monitor trust, which I agree with a thousand percent.

What does he say are the three biggest trust-building behaviors according to these instruments? Delivering work on time, internally and externally, of course. Inspiring vision. We talk about that all the time. The CEOs and senior leaders need to be talking about vision and mission and values and these ephemeral things that contractors think, "Ah, that's just a bunch of hocus pocus. We don't need that kind of stuff here." Yeah, you do. You have to have an inspiring vision. And the third thing is honesty. I think contractors are brutally honest. I think that's a great ... Among all the industries I ever worked with, nobody was ever more honest than contractors as a whole. So I think that probably ought to come to you guys pretty easy.

What are the weakest? What are the three weakest trust-building behaviors? Showing vulnerability. Maybe it's a cultural thing, maybe it's an industry thing. I don't know, but we're not ... And I'm in this crowd, too. I'm not that great at showing weakness. You want to be the strong, rugged leader, right? And showing weakness isn't the best way to do it. Or vulnerability, rather, is not the best way to do that.

Now, the next one is confusing humility with weakness. Again, we're trying to avoid the appearance of weakness or vulnerability or humility or whatever it is. Kind of foolish if you think about it, because as my wife says, we have a lot to be humble about. I mean, I think that's true for most of us, right? The older and more experienced you get, the more you realize what you don't know, what you're not good at. And I wish this wisdom had come to me at age 30 instead of age 65, but that's life, isn't it? Experience is a great teacher.

And then the third-weakest behavior is top-down leadership versus collaborative leadership. And there again, that gets back to the old command and control style from the military. Heck, even the military doesn't do that anymore. If they've gone away from it, why shouldn't we go away from it? And I think collaborative leadership, bottom-up leadership, you might say, I think works infinitely better than top-down, directive leadership.

So email me, [email protected]. What do you think? If trust is so important, why don't we measure it? Are you interested in something like that? We've never considered it as a tool for our contractors, but maybe we should look at it. So let me know in the emails.

This is Wayne Rivers at Performance Construction, where We Build Better Contractors.

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